In Christ Alone

I.        Vows of Affirmation

“We devote our daily life to God, and to serving our neighbors as images of God” 

("Agnus Dei" by Trish Steel, CC)

   
1. I will daily offer my life to God with reverence and a living faith; I will daily pray to be used as a servant by God for the good of my neighbors near and far. 

Making—and keeping—a discipleship covenant is no easy thing, especially one with twenty different vows! But this Covenant of Christian Nonviolence  is not mostly about individual moral heroics and rigid perfectionism. We will follow it incompletely (the Covenant itself is incomplete), we will miss the mark. Yet the main focus is not simply on our getting it exactly right, but in serving God and neighbor with as much of our being as possible. Love of God and neighbor is at the true center of our peacemaking, not some outside ethical principle of pacifism.  Dietrich Bonhoeffer says much the same in the following paragraph from The Cost of Discipleship:

 If we took the precept of non-resistance as an ethical blueprint for general application, we would indeed be indulging in idealistic dreams: we would be dreaming of a utopia with laws which the world would never obey. To make non-resistance a principle for secular life is to deny God, by undermining his gracious ordinance for the preservation of the world. But Jesus is no draftsman of political blueprints, he is the one who vanquished evil through suffering. It looked as though evil had triumphed on the cross, but the real victory belonged to Jesus. And the cross is the only justification for the precept of non-violence, for it alone can kindle a faith in the victory over evil which will enable [humans] to obey that precept. And only such obedience is blessed with the promise that we shall be partakers of Christ’s victory as well as of his sufferings.

  

We make this first vow of the Covenant as a response to Christ’s faithful, victorious work. In confidence we seek to be formed, bit by bit, more closely to Christ-likeness for the glory of God:  “I will daily offer my life to God with reverence and a living faith; I will daily pray to be used as a servant by God for the good of my neighbors near and far.”

Options for Reflection and Action:

(1) Above, Bonhoeffer names Jesus’ work on the cross as the origin and source of our call to a discipleship which includes peacemaking.

• In what ways do you agree or disagree?
• How does your faith in Jesus ground your commitment to nonviolence? What parts of your commitment are influenced by factors outside of Christian faith?

(2) Listen to the Newsboys’ song In Christ Alone below (even if the theology about God’s wrath isn’t quite faithful). 

• In your life this week, how did God in Jesus ground you for your discipleship?
• Find a unique way today to express your gratitude for God's work in this past week (poetry, song, prayer, service, silence, dance, art, etc.)

Prayer Focus (Based in Revelation 7:9-17, waving palm branches):

Salvation belongs to our God who is seated on the throne and to the Lamb!

Amen! Blessing and glory and wisdom

and thanksgiving and honor

and power and might

be to our God forever and ever! Amen.

And as we suffer and even die with the Lamb,

the one who is seated on the throne will shelter us.

We will hunger no more and thirst no more;

the sun will not strike us,

nor any scorching heat;

for the Lamb at the center of the throne will be our shepherd,

and he will guide us to springs of the water of life,

and God will wipe away every tear from our eyes. Amen!